Someone shared the following verses with my wife and I at a point in our marriage when we were about six milliseconds away from getting divorced.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything . . .

Yes! I remember thinking,if only she would do everything I say, our lives would be a whole lot better. But, unfortunately, there was more.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy . . .

Wait a minute, I thought, didn’t Jesus die for the church? Isn’t that a little extreme? I kept reading.

[H]usbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Then I read the kicker: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21-25, 28)

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, that simple concept of submission changed everything. Before we applied these verses and let God run our marriage, we were constantly battling to get our own way. It was like two rulers on separate thrones trying to run a kingdom that was rapidly falling apart all around them.

But once we put God on the throne and started putting each other first, something beautiful happened. Conversations that used to end with anger and tears suddenly began to end with hugs and prayer. We got peace. We got joy. We got love.